Cream of tomato soup

Subtitle: "A chemical experience"

A well hidden secret here is that I never make tomato soup with fresh tomatoes. Gasp! Really? Yes, really! I add fresh tomatoes to my soup, that much is true but generally it's made from good canned tomatoes in this house. Overall I don't like the flavour from my soup uniquely made with fresh tomatoes. (Remind me I should ask my mom how she goes about).

This being said I admit I made fresh cream of tomato soup a couple of days ago. I figured it would be an instant hit with the kids, not a vegetable in sight, soothing sip-and-swallow soup. Well it was! Sad thing is: kids loved it, I didn't like it at all. It reminded me of a can of Campbells, and, if it tastes like that anyway, why bother and make your own?

So, why blog? Because the recipe mentioned to use 1/2 ts baking soda...... which reminded me of the following:

Friend -Hi Nic!- married to a chemist (no apothecary, the real Dow Chemical chemist type) making tomato soup with fresh tomatoes, complaining while stirring a huge pan, couldn't get rid of the sour flavour real tomatoes have in soup. Husband walks by, is invited to sample and says dead pan: well, if it's acidic add soda and goes on explaining about basic and non-basic fluids...

She adds soda (um.. the real thing not baking soda) indeed got rid of the sour and refuses to eat it. I think he did....

The story always stuck in my mind and we make fun of it every now and then (sorry Michiel!). Reading this recipes using baking soda it all came back and since I had some ripe tomatoes I decided to give it a go with above mentioned results. Won't give you a recipe here, plenty to find on the Net using fresh tomatoes, milk, baking soda, the occasional drop of sherry (in the soup, not for the cook).

But why? What does this baking soda do? Does it keep the tomatoes and milk from curdling? Neutralize the acidic in the tomato? Do you use baking soda, or add sugar or both? Do you make fresh tomato soup at all?